User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Sign Here, Please

@ penhui

It it is not hard to find Chinese people to give you advice on  names - it is a popular and serious pursuit. Occasionally you will find people who change their names as adults to something they find more meaningful or auspicious.

Chinese friends suggested 柏树的柏 bai shu de bai as a family name for the four members of our family. It is the same starting sound as our English surname. They also liked the pun on 'white' (white skin), but I didn't, so I changed it to the alternative pronunciation bo. Same character.  柏树 is a cypress tree.  It also gives me an opportunity to discuss the irregular pronunciation of my name!  I chose a fairly common given name 大伟 da4wei3; originally I called myself 大卫 da4wei4 but I got sick of 'fat stomach' jokes (it sounds the same). Actually I still get the jokes from people who remember my previous name.  Our daughter orignally had a name that copied the sound of her English name, but it wasn't 'Chinese'; she also changed to a common Chinese name.  

Have fun finding a name and, if you decide you don't like it, change.

Posted on: Broken, Busted, and Smashed

Thanks guys - another great Qing Wen.

Pete mentioned 'hole in the heart' which most people would agree is an imaginative, even picturesque, description.   Hopefully not many people have to know this but the related condition, heart failure, is referred to as:

心力衰竭 xinlishuaijie or 心脏衰竭

衰竭 v. exhaust (the power of the heart is exhausted) - not to be confused with what happens with a heart attack. 

The heart 'leaks' as though there was a hole. Blood leaks back through the valve from whence it came.

Heart failure happens when a heart valve fails, either the bicuspid or tricuspid:

二尖瓣（膜）坏了 - the biscuspid fails

或者

三尖瓣膜坏了 - the tricuspid fails  

The valve fails to work properly so 坏了is used. 破了is not used because there is no hole, other than the intended one.  

Sorry I don't have any photos :).  I'm sure there are plenty available if you Google 'heart failure' ..

Posted on: Gone Fishing

@ thinkBuddha

Traditional Aborigines don't use bait or hook either - it is said they 'sing' the fish into their hands. If you get a big fish in a confined space in a billabong this may not be as hard as it sounds.

Posted on: Can You Use Chopsticks?

A Chinese artist built two identical display boxes and lined them with velvet.  In the left hand box was a dinner setting fit for a State dinner - bread and butter knife, soup spoon, entree knife and fork, main course knife and fork, dessert spoon and fork, tea spoon, etc. etc. - laid out in all its glory; a  dozen eating implements representing the pinnacle of Western dining techology.  In the right hand box was a pair of chopsticks.  

Posted on: Can You Use Chopsticks?

@pearltowerpete

Making a three year old use chopsticks sounds a bit intensive.  (I bet there was antenatal education in that family.) 

In Hangzhou my wife observed at a local school where kids move from pre-school to primary school at about 7 or 8 years of age.  At the school canteen the move to primary school involves a rite of passage - from using spoons to using chopsticks.  They believe that the fine motor skills aren't there before this age.  I wonder how general this experience this is?

But using chopsticks for eating peanuts no doubt gave the child a sense of accomplishment - it does me!

Posted on: Gone Fishing

My recipe for Grass Fish in Soy Sauce and Rice Wine （杭州式）.  Use either 草鱼 caoyu (grass fish), 鲢鱼 lianyu (silver carp) or 扁鱼 bianyu (flat fish).

1.  先 .....

在蒸锅里放入水，打开煤气。

2.   第二....... 

水烧开时，放入鱼蒸七分钟。同时准备调料，在碗里放入：

 油,  酱油  黄酒,  糖

3.  第三......

鱼蒸七分钟后，关上煤气，焖七分钟。  把调料放入鱼里。  很简单的

Wash some rice and put it in the rice cooker to steam.  Wash the fish again (to put your mind at rest about food hygiene), fill a large steamer with water and turn on the gas.  Wash and slice the ginger.  When the water boils put a plate into the steamer and wind the fish onto the plate, and steam for exactly seven minutes with the ginger, no more, and no less.  Then turn off the gas and let it sit for exactly seven minutes.  While the fish is steaming and stewing put oil, soy, rice wine and sugar in a bowl - a spash of oil, a couple of desert spoons of soy and a quarter of a cup of rice wine.  Wash and slice the spring onions.  Fry the green vegetables in a wok, adding large slices of ginger, and a small amount of rice wine and salt.  When the fish is stewed pour the seasoning over it.  Sprinkle with spring onions and serve with the green vegetables in a separate dish.  Serve rice from the rice cooker.  Eat the fish straight from the steamer. 

Posted on: Dog Meat and Animal Rights

@tvan

As I suggested at the top, dogmeat is always eaten in a different part of China to that occupied by the speaker addressing a foreigner.

Posted on: Grass 草

Nice work again everybody - I enjoyed the poem, the reading, sound and commentary.  And the coda linking two lines of the poem to the book Tombstone (or is that why you chose the poem?)  Speaking of downright spooky coincidence, a friend put THIS poem in my letterbox yesterday.  Hand-written, on a scrap of paper. 

You know the poem takes on extra significance when you know that some grass is actually fire DEPENDENT - it needs the fire at a certain temperature to germinate. To rejuvenate.  In Nature at least some might say, 'burn -  you'll be better for it!'

Posted on: Hong Kong Visa Run

The rules for extending your visa can be frustrating. My wife wanted to extend hers so that she could complete medical treatment in China (after being mauled by monkeys) rather than going through the 麻烦 of travelling to HK.  The PSB man asked 'You sure you were bitten by monkeys?  If only it was dogs...'.  I think maybe dogs are considered a higher risk of rabies.  We had already said it was monkeys so we had to go to HK. 

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 4: Fetal Attraction

@bababardwan, miantiao

everyone knows that it is those friends your kid hangs out with who can be blamed for everything that goes wrong in their lives. ：）